YouTube video by Sandeep Munda

Srishti Gupta’s journey from a fine arts student to working with Adivasi communities, women and children took her art beyond galleries and into grassroots life. Her involvement in the Noida workers’ p...

They secretly changed the map.Indian authorities quietly redrew the boundaries of the protected Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary, erasing legal protections to make way for a destructive open-cast bauxite m

They secretly changed the map.Indian authorities quietly redrew the boundaries of the protected Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary, erasing legal protections to make way for a destructive open-cast bauxite m

They secretly changed the map.Indian authorities quietly redrew the boundaries of the protected Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary, erasing legal protections to make way for a destructive open-cast bauxite m

Indigenous rights protest in India. Adivasi women from India’s central state protest against illegal mining and unlawful detention in the region. (Photo: Bhumika Saraswati/Creative Commons) In light of the planetary polycrisis, it is time to challenge the dominant strand of Western thought that asserts only humans possess rights and that other species exist solely for human benefit. In their contribution to the Deep Democracy series, Shrishtee Bajpai and Ashish Kothari propose an Earth-centered form of governance. This form of democratic self-organization is based on the idea that all species and nature as a whole have rights. “We sit around the fire and listen to stories. I come from Tharaka – the land of bees. Bees are very wise. Bees know how to select plants. Bees came from the sea and from the deep waters. There is a way we came to the land of bees. Our clans are from animals and our relatives are snakes, elephants, monkeys and trees. They are with us when we make decisions,” says Simon Mitambo, from the Tharaka community in Kenya. For Simon and his community, along with several other indigenous peoples and other local communities across the world, this points to a deeper, wiser,...

A tribal rights organisation in Madhya Pradesh has called for the suspension of the state’s top forest official, alleging that a directive asking forest officers to receive community forest resource (CFR) rights claims violates the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Lok Swashasan Andolan, a platform of Adivasi and forest-dwelling organisations and other civil society groups, said the forest department had been given responsibilities that, it argues, belong to village assemblies and committees established under the law. In a letter dated September 27, 2026 to Madhya Pradesh’s chief secretary, who also chairs the State Level Monitoring Committee under the FRA, the organisation challenged a directive issued on August 6, 2026 by the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) and Head of Forest Force (HoFF). According to the organisation, the directive instructed regional PCCFs, divisional forest officers and chief wildlife wardens of protected areas to receive CFR claims from Gram Sabhas, or village assemblies, ahead of meetings scheduled for August 15. "The directive gives forest officials a role that they do not have under the Act," the organisation said in its letter. The group has demanded that the August 6 directive be withdrawn and that action be taken against the official responsible for...

For generations, Asian elephants have crossed through East India’s Karlapat hills — foraging, playing, raising their young, and returning to the forests they call home. Now, their sanctuary – the sacr

Dr. Shreyansh Tirkey, an Oraon tribal doctor from Jharkhand, faces persistent social prejudice in New Delhi despite his medical credentials. His experience highlights the systemic barriers and cultural stereotypes that continue to marginalise India'…

Tribal people in South Asia prefer being called adivasi or original inhabitants, but nationalist forces in India and Bangladesh oppose it for different reasons.

The BJP-led government in West Bengal canceled the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples celebrations, favoring its own 'Janjatiya Gaurav Divas' and sparking protests by tribal groups wh...

Tribal people in South Asia prefer being called adivasi or original inhabitants, but nationalist forces in India and Bangladesh oppose it for different reasons.

An anthology of weird, fantastic, supernatural, Dalit futurist, & magical realist fiction by writers from South Asia and the diaspora. edited by R.T. Samuel, Rakesh K. and Rashmi R.D. cover art by...